Figure at center of UCLA scandal was just 'nosy'
The hospital employee who says she improperly looked at celebrities' medical files says she meant no harm. .
The employee at the center of a burgeoning scandal about privacy violations at UCLA Medical Center involving records of the governor's wife and 60 others is a low-ranking administrative specialist who told The Times on Tuesday that "it was just me being nosy."
"Clearly I made a mistake; let's put it like that," Lawanda J. Jackson, 49, said when asked in a telephone interview why she improperly looked at the records of so many patients, including California First Lady Maria Shriver and actress Farrah Fawcett.
"I didn't leak anything or anything like that," said Jackson, who had worked at the hospital for 32 years -- since she was 16. "It wasn't for money or anything. It was just looking."
UCLA took steps last May to fire Jackson after determining that she had inappropriately accessed dozens of electronic medical records, UCLA officials say. But the employee resigned in July before she could be fired, spokeswoman Roxanne Moster said. (The hospital had told The Times previously that it had fired Jackson but revised its account Tuesday.)
Neither UCLA nor state health officials have confirmed Jackson's identity, but The Times was able to verify it with a person familiar with the matter.
The breaches have triggered several state investigations and created a major embarrassment for UCLA. The hospital could face serious sanctions from the California Department of Public Health, and Jackson could face criminal charges for allegedly violating a federal privacy law.
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have launched a preliminary inquiry into the matter, a person in the U.S. attorney's office said Tuesday.
"We're certainly interested, and we're looking into it," said the source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
UCLA's ability to keep patient information private has been at issue since The Times reported last month that the university was trying to fire 13 workers and was disciplining 12 others for peeking into the records of pop star Britney Spears, who was hospitalized in its neuropsychiatric unit in January.
Lawyers for Fawcett contend that UCLA employees may have leaked or sold information on the recurrence of the actress' cancer last May to the tabloids, including the National Enquirer. Through UCLA, they asked for a meeting with Jackson last year, but she declined. (Fawcett's lawyers did not know her name but wrote to her as "Jane Doe.")
